| Speaker | Time | Text |
|---|---|---|
| Alternate readings that progressives could offer. | ||
|
unidentified
|
That would be reasonable. | |
| I wouldn't necessarily agree with them. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Christopher Scalia with his book, 13 Novels Conservatives Will Love But Probably Haven't Read, Sunday night at 8 Eastern on C-SPAN's QA. | |
| You can listen to Q&A and all of our podcasts on our free C-SPAN Now app. | ||
| C-SPAN, democracy unfiltered. | ||
| We're funded by these television companies and more, including Comcast. | ||
| Agriculture is the main life in Sussex County, and I'm very proud of that. | ||
| I felt like we were being left behind. | ||
| Everybody around us seemed to have internet, but we did not. | ||
| When I found out that Comcast was coming, I ran down the road and I said, welcome. | ||
| High-speed internet is one of those good things that we needed to help us move our farming, our small businesses, our recreation forward. | ||
| And now future generations will thrive here in Sussex County. | ||
| Comcast supports C-SPAN as a public service, along with these other television providers, giving you a front-row seat to democracy. | ||
| Virginia Democratic Representative Suha Subramanyam held a town hall meeting with constituents. | ||
| This comes as the federal government remains shut down. | ||
| Here's a look at the event. | ||
| Hi, good afternoon. | ||
| Thank you so much for being here today. | ||
| I know there's lots of other things you could be doing, college football, beautiful weather, but you decided to spend it with us. | ||
| So I appreciate it. | ||
| Normally, we do a lot of town halls. | ||
| Normally, when I do a town hall, we're talking about things that are going on in Congress and in the Capitol and getting your feedback on that. | ||
| But this one's about what's not going on, which is that we have not passed the budget and the government is shut down right now. | ||
| This is day four of the shutdown. | ||
| And so, you know, when I'm walking around the halls of Congress, other members will sort of say, yeah, you represent a lot of contractors and federal workers. | ||
| What are they saying? | ||
| And so I decided to invite C-SPAN with us today so they can hear what you're saying. | ||
| And we can send the tape to our members of Congress. | ||
| But I really want them to hear you. | ||
| And I want them to also understand the impact it will have on our community, certainly. | ||
| The reality is, though, this will not just hurt our community, this will hurt every single American. | ||
| And so I just met with the air traffic controllers, for instance, and the last time we had a shutdown, it ended very quickly after they decided that they were no longer going to come to work because they were going without two paychecks. | ||
| And so they said that if that happens again, their members will not show up. | ||
| They do not want to come in. | ||
| And that goes for a lot of different people. | ||
| You know, the services, many of you all reach out to our office for services. | ||
| And already, a lot of these offices, whether it's your Social Security, whether it's your veterans' benefits, already a lot of these services are starting to email us back saying our offices will be downgraded or not open during a shutdown. | ||
| And that's to say nothing about all the people in our community who are furloughed and who will not be having a paycheck for as long as this shutdown is happening. | ||
| And the contractors, the contractors will also not be getting paid at all, not just for a load, not getting paid at all. | ||
| And so certainly there's two things that I'm doing. | ||
| First of all, I want the government to be reopened. | ||
| And the way I want that to happen is for us to sit down, Democrats and Republicans, and negotiate this. | ||
| The problem I'm having is that they haven't even called people back next week to come to work and come into session. | ||
| And I don't know, in pretty much every industry I've worked in besides this one, if you don't show up to work, you get fired. | ||
| And so I'd like to see them show up to work, and I'd like to make sure that we actually have these negotiations on the House side and the Senate side. | ||
| This is not just a Senate-specific problem. | ||
| The House knew this. | ||
| They had six months since the last budget fight to be able to negotiate this with us. | ||
| They knew exactly what we would want and not want. | ||
| And unfortunately, this Speaker and this House leadership decided that they would go for it anyway with the same exact proposals and knowing that it wouldn't have the votes. | ||
| And they decided that they wanted to shut down the government. | ||
| So that's sort of my concern here: I want to make sure that we reopen the government. | ||
| We do it in a way that one protects what's going to be a looming health care crisis that protects people's health care. | ||
| And second, I want to protect federal workers and contractors moving forward because I've seen way too many people, many too many contractors have their contracts canceled overnight. | ||
| I've seen way too many federal workers get furloughed or fired for no particular reason other than the word diversity perhaps was in their agency's headline, or they themselves were simply a casualty of a mass layoff that was not very well thought up. | ||
| Many of them have been asked to come back, but we're losing the best and brightest in our federal workforce, and many of them live in our community too. | ||
| And so, even if you are not a federal worker or contractor, just know that our community will suffer either way, and so will the American people. | ||
| So, will the American people. | ||
| And so, things that will be impacted: routine food inspections, NIH grants, and basic research, SBA loan applications, veterans' assistance programs, DOJ's grant-making office, and many, many more things that will affect our safety, our health, and our security. | ||
| And so, again, a couple things that I think we need to clarify as well. | ||
| One, if you hear this being a clean CR, just know that this is not a clean CR by any means. | ||
| And happy to have the conversation today with anyone who disagrees with me. | ||
| But the reality is, this is the same CR that we had in March, essentially. | ||
| They're just continuing what they did in March. | ||
| If you want a clean CR, last December, we had a clean, as close to a clean CR as we could, and even President Trump and Democrats and Republicans all agreed on it, except for sort of the far right at that moment. | ||
| And so, that passed with broad bipartisan support. | ||
| And there were some issues, some haggling there over whether to increase congressional pay. | ||
| That's not aging very well right now, but to increase congressional pay at the time. | ||
| But that ended up passing. | ||
| And so, if you wanted a clean CR, you could do something more like that. | ||
| But the other thing you might hear about health care, so a couple things that are happening. | ||
| One, people are saying that the reason for this shutdown is because we're trying to provide illegal immigrants with health care, and we're trying to spend a trillion dollars to provide health care, illegal immigrants. | ||
| None of the programs we're trying to protect are actually illegal immigrants will be beneficiaries of these programs. | ||
| Undocumented folks do not get the benefit of this program. | ||
| And in fact, a lot of them, because they don't get the benefit of these programs, end up going to the emergency room anyway. | ||
| What ends up happening when you raise people's costs, and so we have a nice little example. | ||
| This right here is what a premium would be right now: $787 a month. | ||
| I know some of you pay much more than that, but someone who's paying $787 a month now will now be paying about $2,100 a month. | ||
| That's triple. | ||
| So, I've done the math on a lot of people's health care in our region. | ||
| It'll double or triple your premiums for pretty much everyone. | ||
| Because even if you're not one of the people who get tax credits or subsidies, even if you're not on Medicaid, for instance, you're not any of these programs, you will still pay more because the other folks will not have access to care. | ||
| They'll be going to the emergency room more often. | ||
| Hospitals are actually negotiating their contracts. | ||
| They negotiate them years in advance. | ||
| And insurance companies have to plan for that and plan for the increase in prices. | ||
| And so, this is a health care crisis we're talking about. | ||
| A lot of people will not be able to afford care. | ||
| Or if they do afford care, they have to make very tough decisions about what they can and cannot spend money on moving forward. | ||
| And so there's a lot to cover. | ||
| We only have an hour-ish today. | ||
| We put this together very quickly. | ||
| I appreciate you all coming on short notice. | ||
| But a couple of things as well for federal workers and contractors. | ||
| First of all, you probably already got your notices if you're in one of those categories. | ||
| But to reiterate, contractors will not get any pay during this time. | ||
| They will not get paid. | ||
| Based on your contract, you may have certain exceptions in your contract, but federal workers will be furloughed. | ||
| Members of Congress actually continue to get paid, if you believe that or not. | ||
| So I've decided to not get paid during this time. | ||
| And I've introduced a bill and I've introduced a bill to say that members of Congress should not get paid during shutdowns. | ||
| And I'm looking into a few others. | ||
| Here, I'm going to throw out some wild ideas that I've been thinking about. | ||
| In other countries, they have snap elections. | ||
| I was thinking about having snap elections every time there's a shutdown. | ||
| But I think the reason this keeps happening is because members of Congress themselves don't feel the same pain, right? | ||
| And so we need members of Congress to feel the same pain. | ||
| Even our staffs get furloughed, right? | ||
| But the members need to feel the pain. | ||
| They need to feel the discomfort of not getting a paycheck or two or five every time. | ||
| And certainly, it would be very uncomfortable for all of us to have to go and campaign in the next couple of months. | ||
| But that's what needs to happen, I think, if we're going to have some real change. | ||
| The other thing that needs to happen is federal workers and contractors can't keep taking the brunt of these blows. | ||
| And so, you know, one bill that I'm trying to push forward is actually going to give contractors that back pay that they deserve during a shutdown. | ||
| And so I want to make sure that that's not an issue anymore. | ||
| I also want federal workers and contractors to be able to dip into their retirement savings, like their thrift savings plans, for instance, without any penalties, especially to pay some of the bills during this shutdown experience. | ||
| And then we want a lot of people who are federal workers or contractors to have mortgages or other loans, for instance, whether it's for their business or whether it's for their home. | ||
| And so we want banks to be able to work with them creatively during a shutdown and understand the situation. | ||
| Some banks have volunteered to do this, many do not, and it's become a huge situation. | ||
| Last time it happened, it came up a lot. | ||
| And so I can talk all day, but I really want to hear from you, and so the people back home and people watching on TV today. | ||
| But thank you so much for being here, and I look forward to your questions and your comments. | ||
| And most of all, our office is here for you, whether you are a contractor, a federal worker, or not. | ||
| Even if the agency is not responsive because of the shutdown, just know that we're going to continue to call them anyway. | ||
| We're going to continue to advocate for you. | ||
| And certainly, I'm going to continue, I'm going to show up in DC whether or not they're there. | ||
| And I'm going to continue to ask that we have another vote and that we work together in a bipartisan way. | ||
| And so I hope that that will happen. | ||
| So thank you again. | ||
| I look forward to your comments. | ||
| I appreciate you being here today. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| So at this time, feel free to line up at the microphone that's over there. | ||
| Please speak into the microphone and speak clearly and enunciate well. | ||
| We have people at home today, and we also have, it looks like we have some reporters as well that have a mic on you as well, too. | ||
| So thank you. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Thanks very much. | |
| My name is Courtney. | ||
| I wanted to thank you for holding today's town hall. | ||
| I also want to thank you for meeting with several fired federal workers and contractors like myself in the past and for attending a July rally at the State Department where several of my colleagues were riffed unjustly. | ||
| On January 27th, I lost my job at a nonprofit that carried out work on behalf of the U.S. government and USAID in particular. | ||
| Projects that were designed to make America safe, secure, and more prosperous. | ||
| When my HR director called me into her office to inform me that my position was terminated, it was 4.30 p.m. | ||
| I lost my health care at 5 p.m. | ||
| The end of my office's workday. | ||
| I am underemployed and paying for bare bones minimum coverage through the Virginia marketplace as provided by the Affordable Care Act. | ||
| I'm increasingly concerned about what the Republicans are doing with our health care and the elimination of reasonable premiums, tax credits, and subsidies. | ||
| I may lose my coverage again with their current policies and threats with a government shutdown. | ||
| What are you and other Democrats doing about health care for Virginia workers? | ||
| I'm going to take the extra 10 seconds. | ||
| I also spent 25 years implementing democracy programs abroad, 25 years in service of the American people. | ||
| I've helped with snap elections, so if you need help with that, I'd be happy to give you some advice. | ||
| But I know painfully well what authoritarianism looks like. | ||
| Can you also tell us what you and fellow Democrats are doing to help protect our democracy here in America and in Northern Virginia? | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| I'm keeping my answers very short so I have a very long line. | ||
| First of all, thank you so much. | ||
| I'm so sorry about your experience. | ||
| One thing to note is last time we had a budget fight, there were many Democrats that voted for what the Republicans put forward at the time because they wanted the assurance that federal workers and contractors wouldn't get riffed, laid off, fired, furloughed, and there wouldn't be this sort of plan by Russ Vogt and other people at OMB to cut the federal workforce at its knees. | ||
| And what's happened in the last six months is they did it anyway. | ||
| And now they're threatening firings. | ||
| The irony is I believe firing people during a shutdown is illegal, my reading of it. | ||
| And so because of that, they're going to still try to fire people during the shutdown and use the shutdown as an excuse. | ||
| But I want to see some changes, real changes to the way they're treating our community and federal workers in our community and contractors because right now assurances aren't enough for me. | ||
| So thank you. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hi, Congressman. | |
| Thank you for providing this. | ||
| Thank you for providing this forum. | ||
| My name is Kimberly Weber. | ||
| I'm a retired career federal employee and the spouse of a military veteran. | ||
| I served 33 years at CIA and I took an oath to the Constitution, same as you. | ||
| My oath for me is for life. | ||
| And while over the years I voted Republican, Democrat, Independent, today I find myself in opposition to the current regime. | ||
| And in that, I find myself viewed as an enemy of the state. | ||
| Dissent is patriotic, and I see my First Amendment rights and those of every American being stripped away. | ||
| I volunteer regularly with Flare USA, an all-volunteer organization committed to peaceful protest and direct action with a core mission to impeach, convict, and remove Donald Trump from office. | ||
| And on yesterday morning at 4:30, they got their permit revoked under bogus charges, and they got their tents and all their personal and organization equipment put in three trash trucks and hauled away. | ||
| They had no advance notice. | ||
| They had no recourse. | ||
| And I need, I called your office about it yesterday, and I'll be in your office Monday to talk to you about what you can do to help them. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| Yep. | ||
| The other change I want to see is the weaponization of government, especially law enforcement, the National Guard, FBI, DOJ, the weaponization against political enemies. | ||
| I want to see some changes. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hi, I'm Emma. | |
| I am a resident in the area. | ||
| I lost my job a few months ago. | ||
| I've been looking for work. | ||
| There are no jobs, in case you don't know. | ||
| I just got an interview finally for a job. | ||
| I'm going to be making maybe $17 an hour before taxes. | ||
| I have a college degree. | ||
| I cannot find work. | ||
| With health insurance, I pay for my own health insurance. | ||
| With the ACA subsidies not coming through, I will be priced out of my health insurance. | ||
| I've worked really hard. | ||
| I've used my savings to not go for government support. | ||
| At this point, I literally do not know what to do. | ||
| I spent almost an hour talking with my health care advisor with my insurance yesterday, and they confirmed that it's at the minimum is doubling. | ||
| At a minimum. | ||
| I can't afford it. | ||
| I'm going to get pushed on to state assistance. | ||
| When is enough enough? | ||
| And can we impeach? | ||
| Like, what power do we have? | ||
| Because this is the weaponization is real. | ||
| Like, I am a citizen that matters as much as someone else who wants to reopen the government. | ||
| I don't understand. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| I've heard stories like that so many times. | ||
| And, you know, I'll just say again, this is real. | ||
| This health care crisis is real. | ||
| These firings, this weaponization of government is real. | ||
| And we have to do something to stop it. | ||
| I think we have to continue to use our voices, continue to stand up, and continue to make sure that what's happening is not considered normal and that we push back. | ||
| So thank you so much. | ||
| And I'll say you look young, so I don't know how old you are, but there's a lot of young people that I talk to as well that just feel so helpless right now. | ||
| The job market is really tough. | ||
| We had a job fair actually a couple months ago, and a lot of employers came, but there's not a lot of jobs out there. | ||
| The jobs that are out there are not as good as the jobs that people are getting fired from. | ||
| And this generation is really, really hurting right now. | ||
| And so it's harder than ever to own a home, especially in a place like Loudoun County. | ||
| And it's harder than ever for people to get jobs right now. | ||
| And so a lot of the wealth in our country is not making its way to everyday Americans. | ||
| Instead, it's being stuck at the top. | ||
| And certainly legislation like the ones over the summer where you're giving tax breaks to the very wealthiest corporations, they're not using that to hire more people, it seems. | ||
| They're using that to implement AI tools and fire entire departments. | ||
| And certainly this federal government, this administration, is using their power to fire people in the federal government that do incredible work for our country. | ||
| So thank you so much. | ||
| And I'm so sorry. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hi, my name is Bob Bernhards. | |
| I live about a mile from here. | ||
| I vote in every election, and I've lived here for 45 years. | ||
| I realize the importance of this topic today, but I also understood that we could address quickly some other issues of concern to your constituents. | ||
| May I ask a question on that regard? | ||
| Outside of the shutdown. | ||
| Okay, here we go. | ||
| Israel's military action in Gaza is criminal. | ||
| The Israeli government is committing war crimes. | ||
| This has been going on for two years, 15 months under Biden and nine months and counting under Trump. | ||
| Where there has been resistance by Congress, it has been weak and ineffective. | ||
| And the financing of congressional campaigns by APAC obviously represents foreign influence on our government and is unacceptable. | ||
| Representative, I strongly supported you in your congressional election campaign. | ||
| In fact, we spoke on the telephone twice, which was shocking to me that you picked up the phone personally. | ||
| And I thank you. | ||
| I thank you for that. | ||
| Don't call during dinner, though. | ||
|
unidentified
|
I think I did call you during dinner. | |
| I applaud your public outreach and active engagement on local issues. | ||
| However, on the foreign policy side, I believed that you would stand up and reject our government's military and financial support of Israel's immoral and illegal actions in Gaza. | ||
| I have been very disappointed, frankly. | ||
| I'm sorry to say that. | ||
| I have two questions. | ||
| I looked online, and according to TRAC APAC, you are supported by APAC and you have accepted campaign contributions from APAC. | ||
| Could you tell me why? | ||
| I have not accepted direct contributions from APAC. | ||
| There was a portal that they had that individuals donated through. | ||
| And so once I saw that, I asked them to take it down. | ||
| And I've not accepted APAC money this cycle. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Have you accepted it? | |
| Through a portal? | ||
| I don't know what. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Through a portal of some kind? | |
| Did you take money from that? | ||
| Well, individuals contributed through the portal to me. | ||
|
unidentified
|
There's no way for you to determine. | |
| I took myself down from the portal. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| We have to keep going. | ||
| We have a long way to go. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Thank you for that. | |
| I'm just going to answer the other part of your question. | ||
| We have to keep going. | ||
| But as far as the other part of your question on Israel, I know there's the deal happening right now. | ||
| It seems like Hamas has accepted it partially, and Netanyahu and Trump have worked out their part of the deal and that they're stopping the military actions. | ||
| I'll say that to date, I don't know if we can trust Netanyahu. | ||
| I don't know if we can trust Hamas. | ||
| So I have some concerns about how this is going to be implemented, but at least we're trying to end up with the public. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Let me just say very quickly, the only way to end this thing is to stop all financial and weapons shipments to Israel. | |
| Do you support that? | ||
| Why haven't you supported that? | ||
| My last question. | ||
| I understand that. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| Yeah, we have military cooperation with Israel. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Why haven't you supported that? | |
| I'm not sure if you're cutting off weapons to Israel. | ||
| We can do not answer. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Thank you. | |
| On the record. | ||
| Good afternoon. | ||
| Good afternoon. | ||
| Good afternoon, Congressman. | ||
| Truly appreciate your time speaking with us this afternoon. | ||
| One question, three subparts here, though, but that's fairly quick. | ||
| With respect to health care, you kind of mentioned that in your introduction. | ||
| Can you explicitly state how much are the Democrats looking for an additional funding to go along with this current bill? | ||
| You talked about how none of those funds would go towards illegal immigrants. | ||
| Right now, the messaging that's being put out by the Republicans, as you can see on the news every day, is that it is. | ||
| If it's not going towards, or if it cannot go towards illegal immigrants, I really think there needs to be some massive media campaign to get that message out to the general public so it's well understood because we're coming up on the elections here for our governor. | ||
| And I can tell you right now in my office, the water cooler talk is that, hey, the Democrats are trying to provide money to fund illegal immigrants, medical coverage. | ||
| I don't think that's the case, but I think somehow that messaging needs to get out there further because right now in my office, maybe in many offices, that message is not being received. | ||
| So any thoughts on how you can improve what's really being requested in terms of funding and how it's not directed towards that part of our community, for lack of a better word. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| Sure. | ||
| The deal we're putting on the table is to not take away people's access to affordable care. | ||
| And so that right there is not, it's for everyday Americans, doubling and tripling your premiums. | ||
| That's going to affect every single American. | ||
| And that's going to hit, you're going to get letters in the mail over the next month, too, about that. | ||
| And certainly, insurance companies, whether or not Republicans want to acknowledge it and whether they want to lie about it by saying it's only going to be for illegal immigrants and documented immigrants, the reality is that next January you'll be paying that much if they do not act now. | ||
| And so what I think I'm doing is giving them a gift, which is a very easy off-ramp by doing things that are wildly popular with the American people, which is to keep health care affordable and stop these firings of federal workers and riffs of federal workers. | ||
| And so you can tell your friends that that's not true, first of all, about undocumented immigrants. | ||
| And second of all, you can tell them that we're trying to protect their health care. | ||
| And that if they don't believe us, you might get a letter in the mail over the next month. | ||
| And if they still don't believe us, you'll be paying that in two months, and we'll be telling you why, because they didn't actually address the issue. | ||
|
unidentified
|
And how much additional funding are we looking to add to the budget? | |
| How much additional funding? | ||
| Yeah, so the actual funding itself is actually extending the program. | ||
| And so this program. | ||
| $5 billion, $50 billion, $100 billion, do we have a number of- It really depends on what- I would love to have that conversation with my colleagues who have not shown up to work yet. | ||
| But yes, it will really depend on what we end up agreeing on. | ||
| So thank you. | ||
|
unidentified
|
It's hard to hear. | |
| Can we turn up the mics a little bit? | ||
| Do we want to turn up the volume on the mics? | ||
| Really speaking to the mic, get closer. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Check, check, check. | |
| Okay. | ||
| Otherwise, Christian is going to have to ask the question for you. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Don't want that. | |
| Hello, Congressman. | ||
| My name is Tim Rush from Leesburg, a 40-year resident with the LaRouche organization. | ||
| I wanted to, behind, if we get when and if we get past this current shutdown, the whole fiscal situation of the country is a huge mess, as we know. | ||
| And we do have this combination of Wall Street, the Silicon Valley moguls, and the military industrial complex really just sucking the lifeblood out of the ordinary productive part of our economy. | ||
| I brought up with you at an earlier town hall meeting and urged you to fight to restore the Glass-Steagall banking provisions that was a hallmark of Franklin Roosevelt's ability to run the New Deal. | ||
| We had it for 60 years. | ||
| It separates the commercial banks from the garbage on Wall Street. | ||
| And when it was abandoned in 1999, we got into the 2008 blowout and we're very close to new blowouts. | ||
| So I wanted to ask you directly to say yes or no. | ||
| Will you support the restoration of Glass-Steagall? | ||
| I've always supported that. | ||
|
unidentified
|
yeah i would continue to support it i'm shorter than everybody else so let me try to Good afternoon, Congressman. | |
| My name is Julian Cosgrove. | ||
| I live in Ashburn, and I work for Melwood, a large nonprofit federal contractor, service provider, and advocate for people with disabilities. | ||
| I represent about 1,000 federal contract employees, custodians, groundkeepers, administrative assistants, and building engineers who are often overlooked in shutdown discussions. | ||
| Our workforce is predominantly people with disabilities. | ||
| Our workers thrive on stability and structure and are contributing members of society and are off of government benefits because of their employment through Melwood. | ||
| Many without these jobs and without steady pay may need to return to those benefits that are also facing significant changes. | ||
| Unlike federal employees, contractors don't receive back pay when the government reopens, and I appreciate so much that you're focused on that issue and have introduced tangible and critical legislation. | ||
| Our team members face immediate financial hardship during shutdowns, and we are grateful for your efforts. | ||
| What specific consequences or reforms might you consider supporting to prevent Congress from using shutdowns in the future as a negotiating tactic? | ||
| Should there be automatic continuing resolutions, congressional salaries be suspended? | ||
| I'd love to hear your thoughts and thank you for your work. | ||
| Yeah, thank you. | ||
| Yeah, it's something I've thought about a lot: like, how do we prevent this from continuing to happen? | ||
| And so, yeah, there's one bill that looks pretty good to basically say that if you don't get a budget together, we will automatically continue the government until you figure it out. | ||
| I think it would give the executive branch a lot of power. | ||
| So, that's what I'm thinking about. | ||
| That's why I'm trying to figure out if there's an alternative way to both continue the government during so there's not never a shutdown again, but also not give a ton of leverage to the executive branch at the same time. | ||
| And yes, the congressional pay thing, again, we have to make members of Congress hurt the same way our federal contractors and workers, and even our staffs are hurting. | ||
| And so, that means federal members of Congress and senators have to skip their own paychecks too. | ||
| And long term, we have to stop this cycle. | ||
| I mean, it's not just the workers and contractors that go without paychecks. | ||
| A lot of businesses in our community cannot plan six months at a time like this. | ||
| They usually try to get investment in, and the investment looks at the next three to five years. | ||
| And when there's this uncertainty in our federal government, it hurts our economy, both locally as well as nationally. | ||
| It hurts the ability to do business. | ||
| It hurts a lot of people who work for small businesses, too. | ||
| And so, it's the small businesses that hurt the most because the big businesses have huge cash reserves, they can withstand a long shutdown, but it's the small contractors, the small businesses, the restaurants that serve the federal workers that get hurt the most. | ||
| As always, our policies in DC are way too forgiving to the big businesses. | ||
| We bail them out, we do whatever they can because they've got the expense of lobbyists. | ||
| We don't do nearly enough for small businesses in D.C., and it's all a big problem. | ||
| So I appreciate the comments, and we're going to continue to fight. | ||
|
unidentified
|
My name is Jose Ramiro Cruz. | |
| I am a Latino immigrant, and I was threatened to be killed by one of the non-Latino citizens here. | ||
| But I want to tell you, I'm here to give you tools so that you can prove that the Republicans are lying about the main reason for the problem that we have now. | ||
| I have two degrees from Harvard. | ||
| I am a donor. | ||
| I contributed to the polio eradication program in Central America, to the missiles elimination program, to the cholera control, to the reduction of malnutrition, and to the reduction of maternal mortality. | ||
| I have Medicare, and I pay $70 a month. | ||
| I'm not taking anybody else's money. | ||
| So, please take that into consideration when you negotiate with the Republicans. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hello, my name is Jason. | |
| Close to the mic, as close as you can. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| I know it's short. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Oh, I got to go down. | |
| Yeah. | ||
| All right, my name is Jason Moses. | ||
| I'm an Army veteran with 23 years, most of that overseas. | ||
| I want to thank you for doing this. | ||
| I shook your hand at Broadrun High School the morning you were about to become a state senator. | ||
| I live right across the street there. | ||
| My parents were immigrants, Jewish immigrants from Tsarist Russia in the early 1900s, escaping authoritarianism there. | ||
| I joined the Army to make sure we never had something like the Holocaust again. | ||
| And we're seeing ramblings of anti-immigrant violence here as well as demonization of the other. | ||
| I did not serve now 42 years of Army and U.S. government service to watch it happen right here. | ||
| My first government shutdown was December 1995 in Germany while I was getting ready to deploy to Bosnia. | ||
| I deployed to Bosnia. | ||
| I saw what a civil war looks like after years of sectarian violence. | ||
| I hear members of the Republican Party talk about a civil war like Marjorie Taylor Greene, and we do not want that here. | ||
| From 2003 to 2020, I served with the CIA and ODNI here, and I've taken the oath multiple times to defend our Constitution from domestic and foreign threats. | ||
| And I want to let you know that we've got your back to keep defending the Constitution, and we need to get to next November so that we have elections, right? | ||
| Because the blowback is coming, and we're here to support you to make sure not only in this shutdown, right, which is hopefully going to be resolved in days, but we need to get through the next election because that blowback is coming from the American people. | ||
| Hi, my name is Ethan. | ||
| Thank you so much for holding this town hall. | ||
| I'm a senior here in Louning County Public Schools. | ||
| I was born in 2008, so I was born with the Obama administration, and I grew up with that. | ||
| And it seems year after year, more partisanship has been coming into Congress. | ||
| It seems like no one can really agree with each other, as we can see with the government shutdown, with the Congress both not able to pass any new budget. | ||
| I was wondering, what are you doing to work across the aisle with reasonable Republicans who want to create some kind of new bill? | ||
| And what kind of new legislation do you think can make more moderate and more willing to work with each other, Republicans, like snap elections or like ranked choice voting or anything where people want to work together? | ||
| And then another smaller question, how do you determine if someone's a federal contractor who gets the benefits? | ||
| Like, is it like a year in the past year they've done a federal contract or is it some kind of other thing? | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| Yeah, the last question is, I think it's current federal contract. | ||
| So they have a current contract with the federal government. | ||
| On the bipartisanship, you know, pretty much every bill I've introduced has been with the Republican. | ||
| There's definitely some exceptions to that. | ||
| But generally, I try to not, I know that nothing will get passed unless it's bipartisan for me, certainly. | ||
| If this doesn't have any Republican support, it's not going to pass. | ||
| There are definitely people who want to be bipartisan on the Republican side. | ||
| They do it quietly. | ||
| They don't feel like on their side there is a mandate to be bipartisan. | ||
| And certainly there's not a desire. | ||
| And it was interesting. | ||
| When I first got elected, I did a bunch of panels with the new members of Congress that were Republican, too. | ||
| They would have a Democrat like me and a Republican. | ||
| And we were asking, what are you going to do to work across the aisle to get things done? | ||
| And so, you know, I said, you know, we've got to reach out and we've got to work together, find our, you know, acknowledge our differences, find ways to find that common ground. | ||
| And then the other person would say, I was not elected to be bipartisan. | ||
| And I heard that over and over again. | ||
| I was elected to implement Donald Trump's agenda. | ||
| I was not elected to be bipartisan. | ||
| And part of the reason you see that is because a lot of these districts are becoming more and more red or more and more blue. | ||
| And so there's not an incentive to be bipartisan because there's not as many purple districts anymore. | ||
| You're currently in a purple district. | ||
| But that aside, I think there's not an incentive. | ||
| And then the second part of it is the way people get their news now. | ||
| They get their news from one source. | ||
| And so I bet you, even though it is absolutely a lie that the reason the government's shut down is to try to provide health care to illegals, immigrants, like that's a lie. | ||
| But I bet you if you did a poll right now, 30 to 40 percent of Americans would say that that's true because that is the only news that they're getting. | ||
| They are not getting news from public media anymore, for instance, right? | ||
| They're not getting news from anything but people who they maybe already agree with, and certainly they're not listening to people that they disagree with. | ||
| And so that is where we are right now. | ||
| And so it's become more and more polarized. | ||
| And so by the time they get to me in my office, it comes in the form of a, how could you give illegal immigrants alien, illegal immigrants health care, right? | ||
| How could you stop the government because of that? | ||
| It's not a, is this true? | ||
| Because there's no critical thinking to it. | ||
| And it does happen on both sides, but it's harder to work with people when either they think that themselves or they convince themselves of things that are not true or all their constituents are telling them that. | ||
| So it has been become very difficult to be bipartisan in this environment right now. | ||
| I'm a holdout. | ||
| I'm going to continue to try to keep my door open to people. | ||
| I'm going to continue to show up at the Capitol this week and see if we can find some sort of common ground and a way to move this forward. | ||
| The other thing I will say is that the things that we're asking for here, not tripling everyone's health care costs, is very bipartisan. | ||
| There's Republicans that have told me that they would support ACA tax credits being extended. | ||
| How long, whether it's one year or permanent, is one of the questions. | ||
| But there's a Republican in Virginia that introduced a bill to extend the ACA tax credits for one year only, but extend it after their midterms, right? | ||
| But these are bipartisan things, and they're very popular with the American people. | ||
| And so it's unfortunate. | ||
| I think this is a process issue, too. | ||
| The fact that you're not showing up and talking to us is a sign that you want the government shut down. | ||
| That seems to me. | ||
| And certainly the victory laps they're taking in the Trump administration right now is not very helpful either. | ||
| I think it's a sign that they're enjoying the idea of a shutdown. | ||
| Maybe they can use this to their advantage to weaponize government even more, right? | ||
| And so that's why I feel like sometimes I'm not negotiating with a good faith partner here. | ||
| But I'm going to continue to negotiate anyway. | ||
| So I appreciate you raising that question. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Thank you. | |
| Hi, Congressman. | ||
| Hi, Congressman. | ||
| Thank you for being here. | ||
| You kind of alluded to this in your last answer, but kind of going off that basis, if there are so many people who are kind of within their own faith and within their own beliefs, are we at a state now where voters are so disconnected from their own material interests that they'll have no matter what? | ||
| Or are Democrats simply that bad at failing to communicate their message effectively that it kind of doesn't matter what they support? | ||
| And if it's the latter, what can you and other Democrats do to kind of fix that? | ||
| Yeah, it's a good question. | ||
| And I mean, I think we need to explain things to people in visceral terms. | ||
| We need to make sure people know that this is going to happen, that their health care is going to double or triple, that it's real, and not wait until the crisis happens for us to communicate it, right? | ||
| And the second thing is, you know, the message needs to be simpler. | ||
| And so, you know, this time, I think we've done a better job to make the message simple. | ||
| You know, one side is, you know, the other side is saying, you know, the government's closed to give health care to undocumented immigrants, right? | ||
| But our side is we are just trying to prevent a health care crisis and stop these federal firings and cuts. | ||
| What we're trying to do is very simple, and it's popular, and it's good for everyone. | ||
| It's not good for one group versus the other. | ||
| We're not picking winners into losers. | ||
| We are actually telling everyone that this is going to happen to you, and we're here to stop it. | ||
| And so as far as the messaging and the way we talk about it and the way you talk about it to your friends, just know that what we're asking is very simple. | ||
| And all we need to do is have people come to the table and show up to work. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Do you think there are people who wouldn't get that no matter what? | |
| There could be people that don't get that no matter what. | ||
| Some people don't want to hear the other side's story, right? | ||
| Some people want to block out the other side's story. | ||
| I listen to MAGA podcasts and media myself. | ||
| One of the reasons is because I'll see someone like Steve Bannon say something, and then two days later I hear Republicans saying it in the halls of Congress and even the president sort of feeling like he has to say it too. | ||
| And so I keep abreast of the other side certainly myself and it's, I think, made me a better legislator. | ||
| I can anticipate where things are headed with things. | ||
| And so I don't know if voters and the general public will do the same, but I do know that people should critically think about what's going on whenever you hear a message and not fall prey to what you see online or what you hear that might be alarmist, right? | ||
| If you hear something like a fact, check the fact, right? | ||
| So because again, I said this at the last town hall. | ||
| A lot of our social media is meant to make us angry or upset. | ||
| It'll keep us scrolling. | ||
| That's what the research shows, right? | ||
| And even my wife has said, I need to take a week off from social media because I'm just seeing way too much bad news. | ||
| But I appreciate the comments. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
|
unidentified
|
All right. | |
| Good afternoon, Representative Subramanian. | ||
| I'm really glad that you've made the time for this. | ||
| Can you all hear me okay? | ||
| Okay, I don't want to end up chewing on the microphone. | ||
| I'm Brian Alexander from Manassas. | ||
| I'm a professor at Georgetown University, and I wanted to ask about Trump's and the shutdown's impact on higher education, education in general. | ||
| This has been a very, very hard year for students, for colleges, for schools, and universities. | ||
| Trump is waging an unprecedented campaign against us. | ||
| We've seen international students, postdocs detained, seized, kidnapped, and deported. | ||
| We've had huge cuts to federal funding for research. | ||
| Already, American research output is declining. | ||
| We have other nations that are racing ahead of us. | ||
| We also have attacks on academic freedom, attacks on DEI, on climate change research. | ||
| We have attacks on trans students and staff. | ||
| And now there's a proposed compact. | ||
| I don't know if you all have seen this, that the Trump administration has put out where universities are asked to give more concessions in return for maybe a little bit of cash. | ||
| Extortion is a really great word for that. | ||
| Now the shutdown is already squeezing and freezing research support. | ||
| What should we expect from this shutdown in the education world? | ||
| And what can we do about we, I mean, students, faculty, and staff? | ||
| Yeah, it's a great question. | ||
| I mean, I am deeply concerned about what's happened to higher education. | ||
| What we should be doing is trying to figure out how to lower the cost of college and higher education and figuring out alternative pathways for students and trying to see if we can work with our universities who are doing critical research on whether we can do collaborations. | ||
| We have a lot of federal government agencies that work with our universities. | ||
| Our universities have been one of our superpowers as a country, really, for many decades. | ||
| And so this attack on colleges and universities is going to hurt every single American, regardless of whether you plan to or have gone to a university. | ||
| The attack on free speech is an attack on everyone's free speech, not just on college campuses. | ||
| And so certainly if you cross a line, we know what the line is. | ||
| We have hundreds of years of case law to know what's threatening speech and what isn't. | ||
| But saying your opinion and saying that you don't agree with the president should not be grounds for weaponizing government against you later on. | ||
| but that is what's happening. | ||
| Just know that the way to, you asked sort of what are we going to do about it. | ||
| So the other thing is a shutdown. | ||
| A shutdown is going to hurt university systems. | ||
| Many of them also have medical branches, right? | ||
| And so a shutdown is going to hurt the research that they do. | ||
| And sometimes federal employees do a lot of work getting grants out to universities. | ||
| That work may be disrupted quite a bit. | ||
| But what are we going to do? | ||
| I have seen law firms capitulate to this administration. | ||
| I've seen universities capitulate. | ||
| I've seen media groups capitulate out of fear. | ||
| And I'll tell you that if you capitulate, then our democracy is going to be gone. | ||
| And so we have to. | ||
| I don't care if it's a Democrat. | ||
| I don't even care if it's a Democrat or Republican in the White House. | ||
| Everyone is entitled to their opinion. | ||
| Everyone is entitled to push back without having government turned around and weaponized against them. | ||
| And I will tell you also that the moment that I, as a member of Congress and my colleagues, capitulate to this administration and the moment that you capitulate, that is it, right? | ||
| And so we have to stay strong. | ||
| We have to speak out. | ||
| And even if it costs some of us our jobs here and there, even if it costs a little bit of money here and there to a company, people need to know that free speech and being able to voice your opinion is the most important thing to our country. | ||
| So thank you. | ||
| I appreciate it. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Thank you. | |
| Hello. My name is Zach Mattia. | ||
| I live in Ashburn. | ||
| I've lived here my whole life. | ||
| I am once again coming to another one of your town halls to voice my opposition to your stance on Gaza and you voting to sanction the ICC in response to Benjamin Netanyahu's genocide in Gaza. | ||
| I would like to ask, we are in a crisis of democracy. | ||
| I think everyone here can agree with that. | ||
| And young people like me have overwhelmingly voted for Trump young men in the last election. | ||
| And Democrats have record low approval ratings. | ||
| Why should people like me and other young people continue to support you and vote for you and a system that is not representing our views when 92% of Democrat voters want the genocide in Gaza to end and you refuse to do anything to stop them? | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| I disagree with your premise. | ||
| Did you say you voted for Trump, though? | ||
| Sorry. | ||
|
unidentified
|
I did not vote for Trump. | |
| I voted for you. | ||
| However, young men in particular have voted for Trump because they are tired of a system that does not support their views and does not work for them. | ||
| Interesting. | ||
| Okay, yeah, I don't know what I would be one of the 92% of people who wanted the crisis to end in Gaza. | ||
| I support a free Palestinian state. | ||
| I signed on to probably a dozen letters about trying to get a humanitarian aid to Gaza, and I've also supported legislation along those lines. | ||
| I could list all the things I've done to try to support the people in Gaza. | ||
| I've also supported a ceasefire and an end to the war. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Do you support the end of weapon transfers? | |
| The weapons transfers, that's a better question. | ||
| The problem with the weapons, so this is the second time it's being asked, so I'll address them more clearly. | ||
| So the U.S. and Israel have a security agreement, and so that's important. | ||
| It's been beneficial to the United States as well. | ||
| And if you're saying that we need to stop the war and put pressure on them to end a war, I agree with that. | ||
|
unidentified
|
It is a genocide. | |
| But I understand, but the problem I have is that we have a very strong relationship, and that's been important, and it's been helpful to us as a country as well. | ||
| And so I'm not ready to completely cut ties with Israel. | ||
| I think that that's going too far, and it's not necessary, nor is it going to help end the war in Gaza. | ||
| So I appreciate your question. | ||
| But what I hope is that now that there's been at least some sort of agreement in place, that we can move forward and actually help put funds towards rebuilding Gaza. | ||
| But right now, what I'm seeing right now is having to trust Netanyahu and having to trust Hamas try to implement this deal. | ||
| But I hope that we'll at least try to move forward and try to get something to the people of Gaza. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Thank you for your response. | |
| I hope you reconsider your stance. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| Congressman, my name is Dave Barrish. | ||
| I'm 25 years living in Loudoun County. | ||
| Thank you for today, and I agree with everything that the speakers have been saying. | ||
| I think we all agree that Donald Trump is a threat to democracy. | ||
| The message I want to get across is the time for peaceful protest is now. | ||
| It is now. | ||
| He's signing executive agreements which cement dictatorship. | ||
| Now, we need to be nonviolent. | ||
| The reason we have to stay nonviolent is that is exactly what they want. | ||
| So we have to remain nonviolent. | ||
| If we put 100,000 people in Washington, D.C. in a nonviolent protest, we will fail. | ||
| But if we put a million people in Washington, D.C., and a million people in New York City, and a million people in Chicago, and a million people in San Francisco, we can get the resignation of Donald Trump, And that's what we have to do. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Do you want to say anything? | |
| Yes, sir. | ||
| No, I love your energy, and I think we can. | ||
| Yeah, sorry, we have eight minutes left. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Okay, thank you. | |
| One, two, three, four, five, speakers. | ||
| Yeah, thank you. | ||
|
unidentified
|
My name is Mark. | |
| I also am a 20-year veteran and federal employee right now. | ||
| I think if you look back in the last 20 years, there was this Tea Party movement. | ||
| There was this plan 2025, which Trump owned up to. | ||
| By the way, I'm not Republican or Democrat. | ||
| And I think the way to change things is for 2026, the Democrats need to have a plan that has clear and universal messaging that talks about things, whether it's this that you have up on the board or how you're going to rein in kind of executive going a little bit rogue in legislative areas or adjusting kind of some of the taint on that we're seeing in the judicial system or the apparent taint. | ||
| I think there needs to be a strong platform that people rally. | ||
| I think the reason we don't see a lot of the young folks here, and I have five of them in my own household, is, and what I hear from my own kids, is they don't see the plan. | ||
| It's just about don't do what we're doing now. | ||
| And I think I would recommend the Democrats rally around some things and talk about that and message it to death. | ||
| And the youth, I think the younger folks will help. | ||
| So that's all. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| I think my message has always been let's support a strong economy at the lower costs, fund programs that are successful like health care. | ||
| I've tried to keep it simple, but it's a good question, and certainly we need to, we can't just be against something, we have to be for something. | ||
| That goes for everyone. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Thank you. | |
| Go ahead. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Sir, my name is Doug Gorho, and I'm a history teacher. | |
| I'd like to quote something to you, sir. | ||
| He has made judges independent of his will alone for the tenure of their office and the amount of payment of their salaries. | ||
| He has erected a multitude of new offices and sent hither swarms of officers to arrest our people and eat out their substance. | ||
| He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our Constitution and acknowledged by our laws, giving us his assent to their acts of pretended legislation. | ||
| He has cut off our trade with all parts of the world. | ||
| He has imposed taxes on us without our consent. | ||
| These are the words of Thomas Jefferson, the Declaration of Independence. | ||
| These are just some of the 27 complaints that Jefferson stated to the American public. | ||
| Donald Trump is guilty of these events. | ||
| I would like to know, sir, if in your thoughts, and I very much support your idea of the snap elections, if Donald Trump is going to remove the ability to support federal funding that has been granted to blue states who have supported Kamala Harris. | ||
| Can I stop paying my taxes? | ||
| I don't want to tell you yes and then you get it. | ||
|
unidentified
|
I understand, sir, you have certain congressional and constitutional obligations, sir. | |
| I agree with what you're saying, which is what he's doing is absolutely illegal and unconstitutional, and we should absolutely fight it every single time and every single opportunity that we can. | ||
| So I appreciate you saying that. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Can we quote the Declaration more often in our conversations on C-SPAN and on CNN, sir? | |
| I love that. | ||
| Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. | ||
|
unidentified
|
You ready, Christian? | |
| Yes, sir. | ||
| All right, Congressman, good afternoon. | ||
| I'm going to make this, I talk fast anyway, but I'll make it quick for this. | ||
| Close to the mic, though. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Okay, can you hear me? | |
| Can you hear me? | ||
| Thank you. | ||
|
unidentified
|
All right, great. | |
| I have a crazy fear right now, and I need you to tell me that I'm insane and that just to go home and go back to my man cave, okay? | ||
| Okay. | ||
| The deployment of these troops here we're having, right? | ||
| We're seeing in D.C., we're seeing in LA, we're seeing in Chicago, we're seeing now in Portland, Oregon, right? | ||
| They're using crime as the guise of what they're there for, or ICE, or whatever. | ||
| I don't think that's true. | ||
| I think they're positioning these troops, stationing these troops now, for the next election to have armed troops in our streets. | ||
| They're acclimating us to have, used to have troops, armed troops in our streets. | ||
| And the reason they're putting them there is they want them to be voter suppression for the next election. | ||
| Furthermore, I think that's a grander goal of Kevin Roberts of the Heritage Foundation and Stephen Miller is that the reason we had that flag-grade officer meeting at Quantico, it was unprecedented, agreed, Is that they are trying to let they called all those generals here, a flag grade officer here, to say, you are loyal to us, not to the Constitution, you're loyal to us. | ||
| And they wanted them to look them in the eyes and say, I will fire you if you do not follow my commands. | ||
| That's kind of the gist of that day, right? | ||
| Beards, tattoos, whatever other stuff they want to put in there. | ||
| Yeah, Keg's breath. | ||
| But what I'm getting at, though, is that I'm afraid that the plan is for the 2028 election to not be one. | ||
| And when they give the order to go into the streets, the enemy within, that's why we've been training in our cities, that that's what's going to happen. | ||
| So, A, am I crazy? | ||
| And if I'm not, please tell me that you guys are having conversations about this. | ||
| Okay. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| I have one more quick statement. | ||
| And one more quick statement. | ||
| That's just me being petty. | ||
| Let's try to keep it short. | ||
|
unidentified
|
I will. | |
| If I was in your shoes, which I wouldn't be because of what I'm going to say, I would go tell the Republicans that we're fine with all this, that we'll vote for this bill if they will release the Epstein files. | ||
| Then let them defend that of why the government shut down to protect a pedophile president. | ||
| Yeah, by the way. | ||
|
unidentified
|
I can listen to you. | |
| I have to go. | ||
| No, no, it's okay. | ||
| They have not, the 218th signature for the Epstein files, by the way, has not been sworn in yet because they have not let us come back to Congress to swear in so we could have that vote. | ||
| We could absolutely have that vote on Monday, but we haven't had that. | ||
| I hope you're insane, but I can't tell for sure. | ||
| But I hope you're insane. | ||
| But I will say that, yeah, we have a lot of questions about that military meeting. | ||
| But I'll give you some optimism here, which is I think our country's democracy is too old and too strong. | ||
| There's too many people who will stand up and fight something like that. | ||
| And I know Republicans who are very concerned about what's going on, too. | ||
| And I asked them to join me as well in speaking out against things that you don't agree with and don't like. | ||
| And so, you know, they won't be, you know, so anyway, I appreciate your words, though. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
|
unidentified
|
While we're here, while we're in this meeting, Governor Push, we gotta Trump federalize their national. | |
| I appreciate it. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| Go ahead. | ||
|
unidentified
|
When do we fight? | |
| I'm genuinely asking what do you do? | ||
| Now, right now. | ||
|
unidentified
|
This is going to be a war. | |
| There's no kings on our. | ||
| Go ahead, please. | ||
| We're going to leave the room in a couple minutes. | ||
|
unidentified
|
I am Charles Seltman from Manassas, Virginia. | |
| I spoke to you two months ago in reference to my sister dying with dignity, and I appreciated your follow-up. | ||
| My problems with SSI are still unresolved with a government shutdown that no one can see an end to. | ||
| I am here from your angry party, a now frustrated party. | ||
| Under some foreign constitutions, we've gone, you mentioned this before, we would have a no-confidence vote and have a general election. | ||
| Under the United States Constitution, we have to wait for another year before we can do anything about it. | ||
| All three branches of government have failed us. | ||
| The executive branch, the president, is dancing a jig because he can fire everyone and prove that the government doesn't work anyway. | ||
| The judicial branch, the Supreme Court, is refusing to believe the precedence matters and is allowing the executive branch to do whatever it wants. | ||
| The legislative branch, the Republican Party, is blaming the Democrats for that impasse. | ||
| Unfortunately, the Democrats seem to be strangely silent. | ||
| MAGA America has gone to sleep. | ||
| What does it take to wake you up? | ||
| Do the unpaid air traffic controllers and the United States military need to not show up for work for one day? | ||
| I am not mad at you. | ||
| I am mad at a party that has forgotten about the rule of law and that has allowed this country to exist and flourish for 250 years. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| MS. Hi, Congressman. | ||
| My name is Rebecca Cohenches from Ashburn, Virginia. | ||
| Thank you for all that you do for our district here. | ||
| I work as a contractor, but I do fully support the Democrats being a bulwark in this shutdown because there's just too much at stake and the Democrats being a minority party have to use all the leverage that they can. | ||
| I frankly have been disappointed up to this point with some of the lack of pushback, but I'm glad to see it seems like the Democrats are getting their footing back now. | ||
| But I think that we should be pulling funding additionally to help support this health care funding. | ||
| I think we should be pulling it from DHS. | ||
| There is no reason that we need a $170 billion DHS budget that is like the size of the French military. | ||
| That is like the size of the French military, which I think they have nuclear subs, the size of the Russian military's budget. | ||
| We already have a $900 billion DOD budget. | ||
| So I think that could certainly come out and it would make people safer. | ||
| And because currently I think that we are on track to having a Gestapo in this country right now with ICE and CBP going way beyond legal bounds of what they're supposed to be doing. | ||
| And also I just want to say to echo the gentleman about the Epstein files, I really appreciate your support. | ||
| I believe you're on a committee looking into that and you heard there were some hearings about that. | ||
| I think that that has just solidified the corruption and rot at the top with the wealthy and powerful in this country and around the world. | ||
| And I think multiple governments are involved in preserving the status quo through the Epstein files and the leverage and blackmail that has been instigated through those. | ||
| And even though Epstein's gone, this legacy remains and this corruption that has been perpetuated now. | ||
| So I think the quickest way to get out of some of this authoritarianism, billionaire control, is to release the Epstein files and get that out in the public. | ||
| I have a lot to say on Epstein, but we don't have time. | ||
| I have a lot to say on everything we talked about today. | ||
| Can I get a show of hands of anyone who's a federal worker, contractor, former, current? | ||
| Wow. | ||
| And do you support the current CR that's happening that was put before us? | ||
| Does anyone oppose it? | ||
|
unidentified
|
No. | |
| Does anyone oppose the raise your hand if you oppose? | ||
| So there's contractors and federal workers here who did not want me to support that CR last week. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yes. | |
| Okay, so the federal workers, so because I mentioned this the other day that I said, well, you know, the CR, even the federal workers in my district, don't support this CR, even though it would keep the government open. | ||
| Okay, so now it's on C-SPAN. | ||
| There we go. | ||
| I have proof now. | ||
| So anyway, thank you all so much for being here. | ||
| I appreciate it. | ||
| I'm going to stay after. | ||
| I'm going to be outside and stay after because we're going to lose the room. | ||
| But please stay in touch. | ||
| I know we had some questions about other stuff, too. | ||
| I'm happy to go in depth about my answers in those questions. | ||
| But enjoy the rest of this beautiful day. | ||
| And we're going to continue. | ||
| I'm going to continue to show up to work and certainly continue to reach out to me. | ||
|
unidentified
|
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| So you interviewed the other night. | ||
| I watched it about two o'clock in the morning. | ||
| There was a little thing called C-SPAN, which I don't know how many people were watching. | ||
| Don't worry, you were in prime time too, but they happened to have a little rerun. | ||
| Do you really think that we don't remember what just happened last week? | ||
| Thank goodness for C-SPAN, and we all should review the tape. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Everyone wonders when they're watching C-SPAN what the conversations are on the floor. | |
| I'm about to read to you something that was published by C-SPAN. | ||
| There's a lot of things that Congress fights about that they disagree on. | ||
|
unidentified
|
We can all watch that on C-SPAN. | |
| Millions of people across the country tuned into C-SPAN. | ||
| Jesus. | ||
| That was a made-for-C-SPAN moment. | ||
| If you watch on C-SPAN, you're going to see me physically across the aisle every day, just trying to build relationships and try to understand their perspective and find common ground. | ||
| And welcome forward to everybody watching at home. | ||
| We know C-SPAN covers this live as well. | ||
| We appreciate that. | ||
| And one can only hope that he's able to watch C-SPAN on a black and white television set in his prison cell. | ||
| This is being carried live by C-SPAN. | ||
| It is being watched not only in this country, but it's being watched around the world right now. | ||
| Mike said before, I happened to listen to him, he was on C-SPAN 1. | ||
|
unidentified
|
That's a big upgrade, right? | |
| And past president. | ||
| Why? | ||
| Why are you doing this? | ||
| This is outrageous. | ||
|
unidentified
|
This is a kangaroo. | |
| This fall, C-SPAN presents a rare moment of unity, Ceasefire, where the shouting stops and the conversation begins. | ||
| Join Political Playbook Chief Correspondent and White House Bureau Chief Dasha Burns as host of Ceasefire, bringing two leaders from opposite sides of the aisle into a dialogue to find common ground. | ||
| ceasefire this fall on the network that doesn't take sides only on c-span c-span democracy unfiltered We're funded by these television companies and more, including Mediacom. | ||
| This is binging. | ||
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